Departement

Folklore

St. Cornely was Pope at Rome, from whence he was hunted by Pagan soldiers who pursued him. He fled before them, accompanied by a yoke of oxen, which bore his baggage and on which he mounted when weary. One evening he arrived on the outskirts of a village called Le Moustoir where he wished to stop; having, however, heard a young girl insulting her mother he continued on his way and arrived shortly at the foot of a mountain where there was another small village. He then saw the sea in front of him and immediately behind him soldiers in battle array. He stopped and transformed the whole army into stones. As a souvenir of this great miracle the inhabitants of the surrounding country erected on the spot where he stopped a church dedicated to St. Cornely. That is the reason why these long lines of stones standing to the north of the village of Carnac are seen, and why so often at night ghosts are observed walking in the alleys called 'Soudardet sans Cornely' or 'Soldats de St. Cornely'. Pilgrims from all countries flocked to the place to implore St. Cornely to cure their diseased cattle. He cured them all in remembrance of the great services rendered to him by his yoke of oxen during his flight.

The pilgrims, coming to the 'Pardon of St. Cornely', passed among the stone soldiers. The men were supposed to bring stones, the women earth, and to drop them on an elevation near to Carnac, where in time they formed the mount of St. Michel.

Le Rouzic then goes on to hint that perhaps the worship of St. Cornely actually replaced the original worship of the ox here. Hmm who knows.

From 'The Megalithic Monuments of Carnac and Locmariaquer' by Z Le Rouzic (trans. W. M. Tapp), 1908, which you can see in full on the Internet Archive.